Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams
Rate it:
Open Preview
29%
Flag icon
“As a pianist,” he said, “I have an experience that seems far too frequent to be chance. I will be practicing a particular piece, even late into the evening, and I cannot seem to master it. Often, I make the same mistake at the same place in a particular movement. I go to bed frustrated. But when I wake up the next morning and sit back down at the piano, I can just play, perfectly.”
29%
Flag icon
In other words, your brain will continue to improve skill memories in the absence of any further practice. It is really quite magical. Yet, that delayed, “offline” learning occurs exclusively across a period of sleep, and not across equivalent time periods spent awake, regardless of whether the time awake or time asleep comes first. Practice does not make perfect. It is practice, followed by a night of sleep, that leads to perfection.
30%
Flag icon
Post-performance sleep accelerates physical recovery from common inflammation, stimulates muscle repair, and helps restock cellular energy in the form of glucose and glycogen.
32%
Flag icon
The recycle rate of a human being is around sixteen hours. After sixteen hours of being awake, the brain begins to fail. Humans need more than seven hours of sleep each night to maintain cognitive performance. After ten days of just seven hours of sleep, the brain is as dysfunctional as it would be after going without sleep for twenty-four hours.
39%
Flag icon
the shorter your sleep, the shorter your life.
63%
Flag icon
digital hangover effect.
69%
Flag icon
Eating a high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet for two days decreases the amount of deep NREM sleep at night, but increases the amount of REM sleep dreaming, relative to a two-day diet low in carbohydrates and high in fat. In
71%
Flag icon
Not only does this lead to lower group productivity, understandably it often creates feelings of resentment and interpersonal aggression among team members.